While surgeons and surgical specialists have made strong contributions to the fields of both health services and clinical research, these disciplines continue to suffer from shortages of faculty with well-developed research skills, and the lack of research in this area is in part related to a limited pool of well-trained investigators. To address this issue, we believe young surgeons need formalized, rigorous training programs to prepare them for academic careers in surgery and interventional fields. Given that the vast scope of clinical issues most commonly managed by general surgeons involve digestive disease (appendicitis, biliary disease, bowel obstruction, diverticulitis, Crohn's disease, pancreatitis, etc.) and obesity and its related disease, we believe there is ample opportunity for a research training program designed to prepare trainees for academic careers devoted to clinical and HSERV research in these areas of clinical care. This revised application focuses on the development of well-trained clinical and health services (HSERV) researchers by exposing them to rigorous didactic and practical research training through a dynamic set of appropriate activities. Our program will recruit one trainee each year for a 2-year training program, thus supporting two trainees per year after year one. The program will result in trainee completion of a Masters in Public Health (MPH) degree and an independent clinical or HSERV research project. We expect all trainees to be exposed to faculty in 5 core areas: administrative dataset analysis, patient-centered outcomes and patient preference assessment, health economics, healthcare policy, and clinical research development. Trainees will work closely with a research mentor of their choosing and will be formally exposed to other core research areas through faculty lectures, representation of cores on trainee thesis committees, formalized core curricula, and educational opportunities offered by affiliated training programs at our institution. An Advisory Committee will oversee all aspects of the training program. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Young surgeons need access to formalized, rigorous training programs to prepare them for academic careers in a discipline not characterized by long-standing, high-level clinical research productivity. This training program will take steps to ensure that the next generation of surgeons has the ability to raise the quality and amount of surgical research being done.